While not common, sometimes you will find a high angle path to be preferable to the usual low angle path. It is likely that the taller vertical is using a high angle lobe not present on the shorter antenna. You might look at the long path when investigating possible propagation modes that seem unfamiliar--they can occasionally explain surprises.

It is quite likely that E skip was involved--I saw a report of 6M being open from Florida to Connecticut earlier this evening. There were too many similar reports to assume that meteor scatter was involved.